Casting Details on The Witcher Series

In a interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner for the upcoming Netflix adaptation of The Witcher, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, has revealed plenty of casting news for the upcoming series, as well as addressing the fan backlash regarding casting rumors from several months ago. First off, Freya Allan (Into The Badlands) and Anya Chalotra (Wanderlust) will join Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia, as Ciri and Yennefer of Vengerberg, respectively. Additionally, Jodhi May will play Queen Calanthe of Cintra, while Björn Hlynur Haraldsson will play her husband, Eist. Adam Levy will play Mousesack the Druid, and MyAnna Buring will be the head of a magical academy named Tissaia.

Hissrich had this to say regarding fan backlash:

It boils down to a couple things. One, this property has such a passionate fanbase. I think any leak at all was going to attract this type of attention, and with any attention comes backlash to that attention. I do think that whatever information is trickling out there, there will be people responding positively to it and people responding negatively to it. I think that’s just part of making a television show, and especially a show this big. In terms of why people responded so strongly, I think the fans really have pictures of these characters in their minds and I don’t blame them for that. I get it. When I read my favorite books I certainly imagine characters a certain way. There’s obviously a couple lines of description of Ciri in the books and people become very enamored with their own vision of it. I think coming in as a writer and saying my vision might look different than yours is scary for fans, but truthfully I don’t think it has to be. One of the things I feel most strongly about is people being afraid that we’re going to strip out the cultural context of The Witcher, to remove its Slovak roots, the very thing people in Poland are proud of. That couldn’t be further from the truth. What I’ve always wanted to do is take these Slovak stories and give them a global audience.

More details on The Witcher will hit when available as currently a release date is not set for the highly anticipated series.